US President-elect Donald Trump rang the opening bell on Thursday at the New York Stock Exchange after being recognised for the second time by Time magazine as its person of the year.
The honours for the businessman-turned-politician are a measure of Trump’s remarkable comeback from an ostracised former president who refused to accept his election loss four years ago to a president-elect who won the White House decisively in November.
Before he rang the opening bell at 9.30am (1.30am on Friday AEDT), a first for him, Trump spoke at the exchange and called it “a tremendous honour”.
“Time magazine, getting this honour for the second time, I think I like it better this time actually,” he said.
Trump, accompanied by his wife, Melania Trump, daughters Ivanka and Tiffany and Vice President-elect JD Vance, grinned as people chanted “USA” before he opened the trading day. He then raised his fist.
In his remarks, he talked up some of the people he has named to his incoming administration, including Treasury pick Scott Bessent, and some of his announced policies, including a promise this week that the federal government will issue expedited permits, including environmental approvals, for projects and construction worth more than $1 billion.
“I think we’re going to have a tremendous run. We have to straighten out some problems, some big problems in the world,” he said.
Sam Jacobs, Time‘s editor in chief, announced on NBC’s Today show that Trump was Time‘s 2024 Person of the Year. Jacobs said Trump was someone who “for better or for worse, had the most influence on the news in 2024”.
“This is someone who made an historic comeback, who reshaped the American presidency and who’s reordering American politics,” Jacobs said.
“It’s hard to argue with the fact that the person who’s moving into the Oval Office is the most influential person in news.”
In an interview with the magazine published on Thursday, Trump spoke about his final campaign blitz and election win.
“I called it ’72 Days of Fury,'” Trump said.
“We hit the nerve of the country. The country was angry.”
Trump was on Wall Street to mark the ceremonial start of the day’s trading. The Time magazine cover featuring him was projected onto a wall at the stock exchange, flanked by American flags.
Trump took the stage at the exchange flanked by family members and members of his incoming administration while his favoured walk-on song, God Bless the USA, played.
Trump was also Time‘s Person of the Year in 2016, when he was first elected to the White House. He was listed as a finalist for this year’s award alongside notables including Vice President Kamala Harris, X owner Elon Musk, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Kate, the Princess of Wales.
Jacobs, in making the announcement Thursday, said that “there’s always a hot debate” at the magazine over the honour, “although I have to admit that this year was an easier decision than years past”.
The NYSE regularly invites celebrities and business leaders to participate in the 9.30am ceremonial opening trading. Thursday was Trump’s first time doing the honours, which have become a marker of culture and politics.
Trump has long had a fascination with being on the cover of Time, where he first made an appearance in 1989. He has falsely claimed to hold the record for cover appearances, and The Washington Post reported in 2017 that Trump had a fake picture of himself on the cover of the magazine hanging in several of his golf country clubs.
Earlier this year, Trump sat for interviews with the magazine for a story that ran in April. Time‘s billionaire owner, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, criticised Harris for not granting the magazine an interview during her campaign with Trump.
In his latest interview published on Thursday, Trump reiterated that he’s going to pardon most of those convicted in riot at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
“It’s going to start in the first hour,” he said of the pardons.
“Maybe the first nine minutes.”
Trump said he would not ask members of his administration to sign a loyalty pledge.
“I think I will be able to, for the most part, determine who’s loyal,” he said. But he said he will fire anyone who doesn’t follow his policies.
On the war in Gaza, Trump said he wants to end the conflict and that Netanyahu knows it. When Trump was asked whether he trusted Netanyahu, he told Time: “I don’t trust anybody.”
The incoming president also discussed his plans for mass deportations and argued he will have the authority to use the military to assist with the effort, even though, as the magazine notes, the Posse Comitatus Act forbids the deployment of the military against civilians.
“It doesn’t stop the military if it’s an invasion of our country,” he said.
“I’ll only do what the law allows, but I will go up to the maximum level of what the law allows.”
Trump crafted his image as a wealthy real estate developer, which he played up as the star of the TV reality show The Apprentice and during his presidential campaign. He won the election in part by channeling Americans’ anxieties about the economy’s ability to provide for the middle class.
In an interview on CNBC after he rang the bell, Trump likened the broad cuts to the federal workforce that he and his advisers have telegraphed to the TV firings he made of contestants.
“We’re going to be doing the same thing, I can tell you. Unfortunately, there’s too many of them,” Trump said.
Afterward, he walked the floor of the exchange and shook hands with traders.